I am young for a birth worker. I had my son when I was 22, having wanted a baby since I was about 16.
One thing that’s been swirling around my head for a while now, something I’ve noticed about my generation of girls that makes me infinitely proud - is how much we have reclaimed motherhood.
These are the women who twelve years ago were backcombing their hair, taking the first selfies, mixing vodka and energy drink behind city hall and stumbling home to their unsuspecting parents. Getting their first piercings in Blue Banana and stealing each other’s boyfriends and standing up for what they believed in.
And these girls became… mothers.
Who are not afraid to be different.
Along with rejecting conventionality we decided to reject leaving babies to cry. We rejected the idea that holding our babies would spoil them. Ideas that have to be explained with accompanying evidence to others, to tell them it really is okay, we seem to have intuitively understood. We would often choose to share our bed with our babies than a partner.
Seeing the beauty in birth from the women who spent hours in the tattooist's chair, who understand the idea of transformation through pain.
These women are fighting the older generation for their right to breastfeed their babies to natural term, often coming up against huge opposition and criticism. This shows exceptional strength of character.
These are the women fighting for their children's individuality to be respected, who want to find peaceful solutions and limit damage done.
Then the radical honesty that accompanies these friendships – women of my generation have never pretended to be okay, they acknowledge that days with little children are hard, but they’re committed to capturing the beauty too, in lives that have always been shared on social media.
The beautiful baby carriers contrasted against tattooed skin.
I smile wryly as I think of the little babies whose mental image of ‘mama’ is skin a beautifully coloured canvas for little fingers to stroke, glossy hair tickling them as they feed and shining hoops in a smiling face. I wonder if they think that’s what women look like. I hope they do.
I’m so proud of these rebel girls who have embraced intuitive mothering. And I know that the best way to make them laugh is to ask them what their myspace name was.
